Heh heh, Sabine decided to "double down" on her anti-Woke / pro-capitalist takes. Probably an indirect response / reaction to a certain "Professor Dave". She´s wrong of course. Capitalism can´t stop climate change, nor is economic growth sustainable in the long run (cough cough peak oil cough). So this is just late stage cornucopian propaganda. But sure, the Big Government-regulated form of capitalism was good as long as it lasted. Until next time, one million years into the future, yes?
I´m not *that* much of an astronomy nerd, but I suppose this Neptunian odyssey could be of some interest. For instance, that Neptune isn´t really an "ice giant" but also contains a lot of rock...and maybe even new and exotic forms of matter, which just await being harvested by our satellites in AD 2040.
Yeah, so about that...
More intriguing (and potentially disturbing) is the observation that Neptune is currently going through some kind of cooling event, its temperature dropping by about ten degrees anually since 1989. Note also the hypotheses about Neptune´s moons. It seems Triton was captured after the original moon´s had already been formed, essentially smashing most of them in a veritable moonpocalypse. Nereid might be the only original Neptunian satellite left.
Anton implies that the way in which "the minor giants" Uranus and Neptune were formed may have implications for the "exoplanets" and "super-Earths" everyone is hyped up about. But again: what does that mean? More likely to harbor life, or less likely?
Auroras and ancient moonpocalypses may have some kind of intrinsic interest, but isn´t *this* what we are really looking for? Life. Or the meaning behind it. Except the insane cornucopians, who can´t wait laying their hands on all that exotic tungsten...
So the astronauts at the Orion spacecraft are currently further away from Earth than any other human ever. It *is* amazing that this happens in 2026, when essentially everything else in the world goes to hell.
But note also the following: the furthest away humans have been from Earth is a flyby around the Moon. You know, Earth´s satellite - which is fully visible from the Earth´s surface essentially every day.
That´s it. So perhaps not the right time for any high falutin´ cornucopian fantasies about our destiny being in the stars (or a manned mission to Mars)...
A fun little video about how Shambhala is guarded by highly spiritually evolved Yetis. Includes the interview with Sri M, which I linked to before (in a better version). Sounds legit, LOL. Seriously, though, the story is fascinating, but I suppose you have to be on a first name basis with Babaji to really get confirmation. And know what? Some say he is just as elusive as the Yeti...
Vance is a rather notorious Trump sycophant. It seems the Vice President has a sycophant all his own. The guy who wrote "Code Red" (and the article below). Translation: Peter Thiel wants to sell his techno-dystopian future to the American electorate as "populism". Let´s welcome the new techno-populist future! I´m sure it´ll be waaaaay better than the techno-bureaucratic future on offer from The Other Team...
This isn´t going very well, is it?
Half of Europe´s population died horribly during the Black Death circa 1350. Yet, here we are. Carthage was destroyed by the Romans. But then, it was rebuilt. So was Jericho. Baghdad was genocided by the Mongols. Yet, there it is. China and Russia has collapsed repeatedly through world history. They are still great powers.
Oh, and then there´s Atlantis. Gone in fire and gravel, right? But we´re here. And we´re more advanced than the Atlantids. All of humanity drawned in the Flood, except for one family. Today, the world´s population is much higher than in the times of Methuselah. The Nazis killed six million Jews. Yet, there are more Jews today than ever before in history. Millions of American Indians died due to lack of immunity to European disease. Yet, there are more (un)American Indians today than ever before. They run entire nations.
And btw, flying cars do exist. I´ve seen them on the evening news.
So what´s the problem really?
"Einstein-Rosen caterpillar" is a keeper! Sabine discusses some recent papers on so-called wormholes, mysterious tunnels in space-time which are mathematically possible according to Einstein´s theory and would (perhaps) make time travel possible. Not to mention travel between two regions very far apart in "normal" space. Which is why wormholes play such a central role in both science fiction and various cornucopian speculations.
There´s just one tiny little problem: there´s no actual evidence that wormholes are physically real. And as far as I understand, many scientists argue that if they are are, they are extremely small and almost invisible.
And as far as scy fy is concerned, well, doesn´t the Fermi paradox apply equally much to a cosmos with hypothetical wormholes as one without them? If there really are cosmic tunnels out there, large enough to let some interstellar spaceship through: hey, where is everyone?
When I was much younger, there was a popular German pop band named Alphaville. They were apparently named after some strange dystopian movie. I watched the film earlier today - for the first time ever. ”Alphaville” turns out to be a French science fiction flick from 1965, directed by Jean-Luc Godard and starring Eddie Constantine, an American actor whose character Lemmy Caution seems strangely misplaced. And yes, he speaks French! The entire production is slightly surrealistic and the plot isn´t always clear.
The film taks us to Alphaville, a futuristic city which has traits of both the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and a Western techno-utopia. The streets are named after famous scientists, and the nominal leader is a certain Professor von Braun (or perhaps Vonbraun?). Guess who *he* is freely based on? All women seem to be prostitutes – think of how the KGB tried to snare Western visitors with honey traps. Alphaville is run by ALPHA-60, a super-intelligent computer which communicates with a peculiar guttural voice. Intentionally or otherwise, its monologues sound like typical French quasi-intellectual mumbo jumbo.
The similarities with George Orwell´s ”1984” are obvious, including a kind of Newspeak and the authoritarian idea of erasing both past and future, making everyone live in an Eternal Now. Naturally, feelings (including love) are banned. Since Caution uses ”Oceanic time” when making temporal references, the viewer is presumably supposed to spot the Orwellian influence. There is also a vampire theme, although not very pronounced. Vonbraun´s real name turns out to be Nosferatu!
Caution (posing as a reporter) is on a secret mission from the Outlands to retrieve a previous agent and kill Vonbraun. The exact location of the Outlands is never made clear. Is it another place on Earth? Or another galaxy entirely? Nor is it clear when the story is supposed to be set. At one point, it´s heavily implied that the Cold War is just a few decades in the past. Alphaville and the Outlands (including ”Tokyoville” and ”Nueva York”) are themselves embroiled in a cold war-style confrontation which threatens to turn hot at any moment.
The Alphavillians are remarkably inept and it´s difficult to believe that we´re really seeing a totalitarian dictatorship. There are a number of absurd situations, including a *very* bizarre execution scene. In fact, I don´t think I´ve ever seen an execution this strange in all of cinematic history! ALPHA-60 at first doesn´t consider Caution a threat and lets him freely roam the city. In another typical plot twist, Caution eventually destroys the computer by asking it a riddle it can´t answer (since the machine is strictly logical). And yes, underlying it all is an incredibly boring love story between the hard boiled Agent 003 and a certain Natacha von Braun (or is it Vonbraun?) who may or may not be the professor´s daughter.
To a modern viewer, this 1965 production comes across as very dragging, but I admit that it was interesting (after a fashion) to see this relic of a time which feels both very far away and yet strangely familiar (even with the surrealist accoutrements). Pardon my French, by the way! The techno-utopia turned dystopia still looks very current, including the intelligent machine (think AI). Even the inept authoritarianism feels so 2025. Most of the other stuff comes across as very dated. I mean, they even use phone boots! Still, could be of some interest if European noir is your thing.
Scott Carney strikes again. The video is about the "Gelephu Mindfulness City", some kind of bizarre utopian scheme in Bhutan (of all places). Or a very desperate attempt to attract foreign investment into the small Himalayan kingdom?
The "city" has all the right New Age vibes. It´s supposed to be sustainable, spiritual, unite modern and ancient medicine, and is projected to have a hydroelectric power plant designed to look like some kind of Buddhist symbol?! And yes, it seems only foreigners are supposed to live there.
Hmmm...methinks the king of Bhutan may have overestimated the economic prowess of the new agey California middle classes. The whole thing looks like a weird parody of the Western Idea of Progress. So unless India (still in a state of growth, apparently) thinks they can harness all that electric power, I´d say the mindfulness Shangri-La will fail...
The silly season comes very late this year. With all due respecc to Zzabine, this is cornucopian-utopian agitation. With some disturbing tendencies á la tech broligarchy.
In ten years, this video will be considered a crazy fossil dinosaur. But sure, I could be wrong. Make that thirty years.
Time to die...
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| More likely future? |
End it already. This is beyond parody at this point.
A quote: "Elon Musk shared his vision of the future at the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum in Washington, DC this week. According to the tech tycoon, work will be optional and money will lose all meaning as AI-powered robots take over every aspect of the economy over the next two decades."
Is it 2025? Or 1965? Seriously...
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| This funny picture from a previous post comes in handy here! |
The last warning about the AI hype and its attendant bubble? TL/DR: Not funny. At all. I´m almost tempted to ask the AI to comment this!
At the same time, there was *something* worrisome about the whole thing. I mean, many of the same books claimed that the universe was finite in time. One day, it would completely die ("the heat death")...never to be revived again. As in never ever. WTF?!
Yes, this use to worry me as a child. Not enough to keep me awake at night, true, but enough to be perplexed. Since it strongly implied that there is no progress. That the "heat death" may be trillions of years into the future doesn´t matter. At some point, everything will just come to an end, and that´s that.
And it still is. Except that I no longer believe in the contradictory high modern scientism of my sadly misspent youth. On the one hand, I strongly suspect that we live in an eternal universe, a ditto multiverse, or a cyclical cosmos. On the other hand, there is no "progress" within this framework. At least not in our little corner of the universe, where we are probably stuck until that red giant situation...
If there is some escape hatch or exit door is, I suppose, the 10,000 dollar question.
So the disappearence and mass death of the Western honeybee has been solved. Not by Anthroposophical organic farming, zero population growth or a ban on eating honey. But by high technology, specifically the invention of a new pollen substitute which can feed the bee colonies indefinitely.
Western (and therefore modern) civilization has been saved. Cornucopia next?
Or no?
Or paranoid as a paddy? Seriously, I take zero-zero responsibility for the content of this content-creator. Linked here as a "free speech test" mostly...
So I just saw a French science documentary, "Alter Ego", on Swedish TV about cloning. Artificial human cloning of non-human animals, to be exact. Remember Dolly the cloned sheep? For whatever reason, the European Union bans this kind of cloning, so the industry thrives in the rest of the world. In the docu, they interview Americans and Argentinians who clone horses (including race horses), Chinese who clone pet dogs, and a hyper-modern lab in the United Arab Emirates financed by the Emir of Dubai which clone dromedaries (camel races are popular in some nations). In the United States, there are supposedly cloned deer with exactly the qualities a wild-game hunter wants!
There are also discussions to clone mammoths and other extinct animals, such as the dodo. Maybe this is a bit too much hype? One scientist actually believes that cloning birds is extremely difficult to impossible. Another opines that "cloned mammoths" would really be genetically enhanced elephants which can live in cold weather! However, the cloned foal of a Przewalski´s horse (this species or sub-species is extinct in the wild) is real, so here is a possible avenue to save endangered species. It seems cloning can even enhance the genetic diversity of a species. The two-humped Bactrian camel (which is almost extinct in the wild) is mentioned as the object of another possible rescue mission.
The documentary doesn´t discuss human cloning and no Raëlians are interviewed. The production is clearly pro-cloning and I do wonder after watching it why the EU has banned cloning. How does this help us? How does it help the animals? Is it just some weird superstition? On our "enlightened" continent! In reality, the applications are almost endless. Imagine killing off all wolves, but keeping their DNA around for future re-creation just in case.
Hmmm...
Is this some kind of a joke? And at a YouTube channel which attacks pseudo-science, to boot! But then, there is a slightly jocular tone in this presentation...
The clip is about "obscure solutions to the Fermi paradox". Most are cornucopian in nature. Maybe the aliens are throwing a never-ending psychedelic party inside a black hole? Maybe they live inside a super-computer floating around in intergalactic space? Try locate it, it´s like trying to find a needle in intergalactic space...
Or maybe the aliens are invisible god-like beings who, after giving everyone a free pony, simply self-destruct when realizing that existence is ultimately pointless.
The most interesting proposal is that alien intelligence is so strange that humans simply can´t detect it. This reminds me of Rupert Sheldrake´s idea that the sun is alive. The analogy used in the video is an ant which can´t comprehend a computer. For the ant, the computer is just another feature of the landscape. Little does it know that it´s the product of a powerful "divine" intelligence, shit posting stupid videos on something called "the internets".
Maybe existence is pointless, after all.
A lot of cope in the YouTube commentary section right now as a new paper *again* disproves the existence of Dyson Spheres. The techno-freaks claim that maybe they are - wait for it - invisible.
Yeah, so the hiddenness of God counts as evidence against God, but the hiddenness of Dyson Spheres doesn´t count as evidence against Dyson Spheres? Funny how that works.
I think the concept of a Dyson Sphere says more about the cornucopian fever dreams of modern (human) civilization, than it does about aliens...
